10 Tips to Optimize B2B Landing Pages

We have been getting a lot of requests to take a deeper look and map out the way to create high converting B2B landing pages. Though a landing page is a landing page, when it comes to B2B landing pages there are many different emotional triggers and nuances to take into account which is why in this post we’ll dive into those differences and try to construct a guide and checklist for you to follow when creating one.

To clarify, ‘B2B’ stands for ‘Business to Business’ and refers to businesses who’s target audience is other businesses, well-known examples would be Mailchimp, Hubspot, Kissmetrics and Conversioner of course.

B2B landing pages have a huge impact on revenues and leads. Since many B2B companies do not have a lot of traffic (as opposed to B2C companies for example), their landing pages can have a direct impact on revenues and conversions. In fact, HubSpot conducted a research and found that businesses that increased the number of landing pages from 10 to 15 (by adding just 5 more specialized landing pages), saw an increase of 55% in leads, which is why it is so important to focus on your creating high converting landing pages.

Let’s take a look at the main differences between B2B and B2C businesses and how you should consider this when optimizing your B2B landing pages.

In B2B, you are selling to a person who is buying as a product or service for company use. Your customer wants to make sure that what they are buying is suitable for their professional needs and personal needs within the company. Similar to B2C customers, B2B customers do extensive market research to find the best possible solution but in this case it’s not just for them, it’s also for their company. Many times, after performing this research they will be required to present their choice to different people in the company – whether their teammates or manager which makes it a longer purchase cycle than most B2C sale cycles.

In addition to all this, once a decision is made B2B sales usually involve more complicated funnels which include invoices, contracts and accounting, which makes the whole process more complex.

B2B landing page optimization tips

1. AIDA (like the Opera)

AIDA is a term I learned from the CopyHackers’ course I’ve been taking and I loved the way Joanna explains it:

Attention – Your headline should relate to the referral that brought your user in and because whatever referred them grabbed their attention, don’t lose it!

Interest – Explain why this is interesting to the user – facts and figures

Desire – Explain why this is personally good for the user (you’ll never have to worry again, you can A/B test easily with the platform, you’ll gain a better understanding of how your users interact with your site and therefore market to them better).

Action – Tell them what’s next – whether it’s downloading the white paper, a free ebook, buying your product or signing up for a consultation – tell your user what action to take next. Now for a B2B company, with a longer sales cycle that includes reading a lot of info, researching the market, and debating with your team/convincing the CEO that this is the right purchase, you need to consider what you are offering and what action you want your user to take.

Stay Consistent with the Source. You should know where your users are coming from – which ad, referral or link brought the user in – and each of those different sources should lead to different landing pages or cater to your different ad messages. In order for your landing page to have the strongest impact, it should match, in terms of copy and imagery, to the ad/link/context your user are coming from.Why? Imagine this scenario for a moment…Your company offers Project Management Tools along with an analysis tool and an email marketing service, but someone saw your Google Ad after searching for Project Management Tools – “The #1 Project Management Tool For Online Enterprises”. They clicked it! You want them to land on a page for your Project Management Tool specifically – to suit what they were looking for. If they land on your homepage and it says “ALL YOUR CRM AND EMAIL MARKETING NEEDS MET!”, this user, looking for a project management solution, will say – I’ve reached the wrong place! And then they will leave.Therefore, you want them to land on a page that says “Now you’re free to focus on the important details – Project Management Tool” and they’re thinking – yes! I do need more time to focus on the important things instead of wasting my time trying to organize project data! Thank god I found this great company with such an awesome solution. To get purchases, you need to consider what you are offering and what action you want your users to take.

You Have 3 Seconds – Use Them Wisely…You have 3 seconds to grab the attention of your user and make them stay. That means a strong headline and powerful imagery.I mentioned the headline earlier and I’ll say it again. It’s important! Your user needs to know that this is relevant to them and what they are looking for and the user needs to feel that this is also trustworthy and will solve the problems they are looking to solve. Use that emotional targeting strategy for both the imagery and the headline (short, sweet and to-the-point) to get the employee of this other company to think – “Yes. This is the right product for my company.”

You have 3 seconds to grab the attention of your user and make them stay

Develop A StrategyTrue or False: If you’re selling a product/service to another business, you don’t need emotional targeting.This is… false! But I get where you’re coming from. I mean…it’s a business. It’s professional. What emotions are there? There are many.In B2B, your user is an individual who is responsible for finding a solution for the business you are trying to convert. They may be an Online Marketing Manager, a Project Manager, a CEO, etc. Just like you, they are a person who is sitting and searching how to improve and keep their business growing, effective, and successful. And just like you and me, they are affected by their emotions.This person has their business’ needs – a tool, a solution, something for project management, increasing conversions, improving their email marketing, etc.But other than the technical elements of your service, they are also affected by their own personal priorities and emotions – They might be worried about how the service is accepted and liked by their team if it will impress their boss, or will they finally the recognition they deserve and maybe that promotion.

So before you set to designing, do some research, write up that marketing persona, and get your emotional targeting strategy down.